The job interview is essentially an established literary genre, like playwriting or screenwriting. Unfortunately, it’s also a genre that relies heavily on formulas and tropes. Every interviewer seems to pull from the same limited bag of prewritten questions. Rare is the interviewer who steps outside the box for even a moment!

In general, that’s a good thing. It’s much more comfortable for both an interviewer and an interviewee to have an idea of what to expect from one another when they sit down in a room together. Plus, wildly inventive interview questions might scare off a lot...